USNS Harvey Milk is renamed after a WWII sailor in the latest Pentagon diversity purge
The decision is the latest move by Hegseth to wipe away names of ships and military bases that were given by President Joe Biden's Democratic administration, which in many cases chose to honor service members who were women, minorities, from the LBGTQ community and more.
Advertisement
It follows earlier actions by Hegseth and President Donald Trump, a Republican, to purge all programs, policies, books and social media mentions of references to diversity, equity and inclusion in the military and elsewhere.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Hegseth's announcement comes during Pride Month — the same timing as the Pentagon's campaign to force transgender troops out of the U.S. military.
'We're not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists,' said Hegseth, who earlier this month ordered Navy Secretary John Phelan to put together a small team to rename the USNS Harvey Milk replenishment oiler.
He said Peterson's 'spirit of self-sacrifice and concern for his crewmates was in keeping with the finest traditions of the Navy.'
Advertisement
When Hegseth announced the decision to rename the ship, officials defended it as an effort to align with Trump and Hegseth's objectives to 're-establish the warrior culture.'
Peterson served on the USS Neosho, which also was an oiler. The ship was damaged during the Battle of the Coral Sea, and even though Peterson was injured, he managed to close the bulkhead stop valves to keep the ship operational. He died of his wounds.
The Navy in 1943 named an escort ship after Peterson. The USS Peterson served for more than two decades and was decommissioned in June 1965.
The USNS Harvey Milk was named in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who said at the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers would be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights.
Harvey Milk, who was portrayed by Sean Penn in an Oscar-winning 2008 movie, served for four years in the Navy before he was forced out for being gay. He later became one of the first openly gay candidates elected to public office, in San Francisco. He was assassinated in 1978 by a disgruntled former city supervisor.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
Mourners Stream Into Minnesota Capitol as Assassination Victims Lie in State
Elected officials and everyday Minnesotans streamed into the white-domed State Capitol on Friday to pay their respects to State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were fatally shot at their suburban Minneapolis home this month. At one point, a line of mourners stretched around the block outside the Capitol in St. Paul as people slowly passed through the rotunda to mourn the Hortmans, who were lying in state in wooden caskets adorned with floral arrangements. An urn for their dog, Gilbert, who was also killed in the attack, was displayed alongside photographs. The authorities have described the killing of Ms. Hortman, a Democrat who previously served as speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, as an assassination. The suspect in the couple's deaths appeared briefly in federal court on Friday. At the Capitol, Gov. Tim Walz and his wife Gwen were the first to approach the caskets. Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul wiped tears from his eyes as he passed. Lisa Demuth, the Republican speaker of the State House, was also among the first to pay respects. Dozens of Capitol workers stopped by, some crying or exchanging hugs on the building's steps as they left. Nearby, inside the House chamber, a picture of Ms. Hortman was displayed on her desk alongside a vase holding flowers. As mourners lined up outside the building, some carried bouquets or were accompanied by their dogs. Hours after the procession started, hundreds of people remained in line. Anna Richey, a former Capitol staff member, said she had crossed paths with Ms. Hortman frequently. 'She was as real as she was tough as she was empathetic,' Ms. Richey said. Outside, Faith Mainor said, 'I'd like to see some scaling back of the dialogue that led to this.' And Amy Schulte held flowers and a dog toy that she planned to leave in the rotunda as a tribute to the Hortmans. 'I just felt like it was just a senseless death, just violent, indescribable,' said Ms. Schulte, a Minneapolis resident. Mike Starr arrived hours before the Capitol doors opened. He said he had met Ms. Hortman years ago when he was running for office, and felt it was important to honor her. The shootings, he said, had left him with a series of questions: 'Why? What for? How come?'
Wall Street Journal
35 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
About Those ‘Millions' Losing Medicaid
Senate Republicans have to rework provisions in their big budget bill to pass muster with esoteric parliamentary rules, but tune out the Democratic wishcasting that the entire project is in jeopardy. On the other hand, here's some Capitol Hill news worth knowing: The GOP bill isn't throwing all and sundry off their health insurance, no matter the media claims to the contrary. A Congressional Budget Office letter this week adds important explanatory details to the claim that 7.8 million more Americans won't have health insurance in 2034 because of GOP Medicaid changes. Democrats broadcast this CBO estimate to frighten voters that Republicans are locking vulnerable Americans out of hospitals. But here are the facts CBO offered to the GOP House Budget Committee. Of that 7.8 million, some 4.8 million are uninsured because they don't comply with the bill's part-time work requirement. This is a torpedo in the hull for the Democratic talking point that everyone on Medicaid already works. The bill asks able-bodied, prime-age adults without children to work or volunteer roughly 20 hours a week. The serious academic evidence suggests perhaps half of that able-bodied population isn't clearing that basic work bar. A recent report from the American Enterprise Institute is sobering: 'For Medicaid recipients who do not report working, the most common activity after sleeping is watching television and playing video games. They spend 4.2 hours per day watching television and playing video games, or 125 hours during a 30-day month.' In a healthier political culture, even Democrats would agree that men who decline to work shouldn't get free health insurance to check out of life. The real 'Call of Duty' is getting a job.
Yahoo
37 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US Air Force to retire all A-10s, cancel E-7 under 2026 spending plan
The Air Force wants to retire its final 162 A-10 Warthog attack jets in fiscal 2026, as part of a plan to divest 340 total aircraft. The Pentagon also plans to cancel the E-7 Wedgetail program over what an official said were 'significant delays' and cost increases. The service released its list of planned aircraft retirements as the Pentagon released its belated 2026 budget plan, which calls for a $211 billion discretionary budget for the Department of the Air Force. That includes a $184.9 billion discretionary budget for the U.S. Air Force itself, and a $26.1 billion discretionary budget for the Space Force. The Pentagon also wants to add another $38.6 billion in 'mandatory' spending as part of the budget reconciliation bill, which would include $24.7 billion for the Air Force and $13.8 billion for the Space Force. If that passes, the department would receive $249.5 billion in total funding, which would be a 17.2% increase over enacted spending in 2025. But if the reconciliation bill does not pass, and the administration's request is enacted unchanged, the Space Force would see an 8.7% cut in spending from 2025, while the Air Force's spending would be virtually flat from the $184.1 billion enacted in 2025. If Congress grants the Air Force all of its requested retirements, it would be the biggest aircraft retirement in years. The service said earlier this year that, in response to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's order to cut and reallocate about 8% of defense spending, it planned to accelerate its plans to retire old and outdated aircraft. The plan to completely shutter the A-10 program would be a dramatic acceleration of the service's previous timeline, which would have retired all Warthogs by the end of this decade. And while lawmakers have in recent years acquiesced to Air Force requests to retire some Warthogs — after years of bitter disagreements between the service and Capitol Hill over the future utility of the jet — it remains far from clear whether Congress has the appetite to mothball all of the attack jets. In addition to the A-10s, the Air Force wants to retire 62 F-16Cs and Ds, 21 F-15Es, 13 F-15Cs and Ds, 14 C-130H Hercules cargo planes, and 3 EC-130H Compass Call electronic warfare planes. The service's retirement list also includes 14 KC-135 Stratotankers, 11 HH-60G combat rescue helicopters, 35 T-1 Texan trainers, 4 UH-1N helicopters and a B-1 Lancer. But the proposed retirement list does not include Block 20 F-22A Raptors, roughly 32 of which the Air Force has tried to retire in recent years over concerns that they are not combat-capable. Congress has repeatedly blocked those efforts. In a June 26 briefing with reporters, an Air Force official said the cost of an E-7 airborne battle management aircraft had grown from $588 million to $724 million, helping prompt its cancellation. The official said the department had concerns over whether it would survive in a contested environment. Instead, the Pentagon is looking for ways to accomplish the mission that would have been done by the Wedgetail with space-based assets, and adding more Northrop E-2D Hawkeye aircraft. This would be a major shift for the Air Force, which is retiring its aging E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control, or AWACS, aircraft and has for years seen the E-7 as the best successor. The budget would also call for $10.3 billion in spending for the B-21 Raider, the Northrop Grumman-made stealth bomber that will be capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and $4.2 billion for the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, which will replace the aging Minuteman III. Northrop is also building a Sentinel. Procurement funding for the B-21 would grow from $1.9 billion in 2025 to $2.6 billion in 2026, plus another $2.1 billion in reconciliation spending. If all spending is enacted by Congress, that would more than double the procurement budget for the Raider. The budget calls for $3.1 billion to keep procuring the F-15EX Eagle II, which the Air Force had previously considered winding down after 2025. The Pentagon next year wants to buy 21 of the Boeing-made jets, which are an updated version of the fourth-generation F-15E, up from 18 in 2025. The military plans to sharply cut its purchase of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to 47 across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps in 2026. That would be down from 74 in 2025. For the Air Force, the F-35A procurement would be cut nearly in half, from 44 tails in 2025 to 24 next year. Air Force spending on the Lockheed Martin-made jet would drop from $4.5 billion this year to $3.6 billion in 2026. This would mean the Air Force would get 45 new fighters in 2026, which is below the benchmark of 72 annual fighter procurements the service says is necessary to modernize its fleet. The Pentagon said money that would have been spent on procuring more F-35s will instead go to sustainment of the jets, and ensuring it has a strong enough supply base to support all the needed operations and maintenance. The Pentagon also wants to dedicate money to ensuring the jets' Block 4 upgrades will stay on track. The Air Force's budget also includes $807 million in funding for its drone wingmen program, called Collaborative Combat Aircraft, which it hopes will accelerate development of platforms and autonomy. The service is also requesting a $73.2 billion discretionary budget and a $4.5 billion mandatory — or reconciliation bill — budget for operations and maintenance, $44.3 billion in discretionary spending and about $200 million in mandatory spending for personnel. The research development, test and evaluation budget would total $46.4 billion, including $36.2 billion in discretionary spending and $10.2 billion in mandatory spending. The F-47 fighter, also known as Next Generation Air Dominance, would see its R&D budget increase from $2.4 billion in 2025 to nearly $2.6 billion in 2026. If another $900 million in spending requested as part of the reconciliation bill passes, that would bring the Boeing-made F-47's budget to almost $3.5 billion. The service's total procurement budget request would reach $36.2 billion, or $26.5 billion in discretionary spending and $9.7 billion in reconciliation bill spending. With reconciliation spending included, the Air Force's procurement budget would include $24.8 billion for aircraft, $6.1 billion for missiles and $784 million for ammunition. The Air Force wants to buy 14 Boeing-made T-7A Red Hawk trainer aircraft for $362 million in 2026. But there would be no new funding for the E-7 airborne battle management aircraft, also made by Boeing, amid a disagreement between the service and top Pentagon leadership over whether space-based target tracking would be better than an airborne platform. The proposed budget would restore $387 million in funding for Lockheed's hypersonic AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon. This could resurrect a program that once seemed doomed after several failed tests in recent years. Procurement spending on the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP — which was used for the first time last weekend to strike multiple Iranian nuclear sites — would be slightly lower in 2026. The Air Force has nearly $8.6 million budgeted for the MOP in 2025, which would drop to $6.8 million in 2026.
